Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks screens in Warsaw on April 21

The 1929 Louise Brooks film Pandora's Box (in Polish Puszka Pandory) will screen in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday, April 21 at the Kino Iluzjon. More information on this event, with live musical accompaniment, can be found HERE. (This page link includes notes in Polish on the film by the 8th Doctor Who, actor Paul McGann, the star of Withnail & I and other films.)

What follows are notes in Polish from the Polish venue.

W sobotę 21 kwietnia w ramach 15. Święto Niemego Kina zapraszamy na pokaz filmu „Puszka Pandory” z muzyką na żywo w wykonaniu Resiny & Mirona Grzegorkiewicza.

W programie:
„Puszka Pandory” / „Pandora’s Box”, reż. Georg W. Pabst, Niemcy 1929 r., 133’
Muzyka: Resina & Miron Grzegorkiewicz

FILM:
W 1926 roku w Berlinie reżyser Georg Wilhelm Pabst rozpoczął obsesyjne poszukiwania aktorki, która zagra główną rolę w „Puszce Pandory”, historii uwodzicielskiej Lulu, której niemoralne zachowanie doprowadza do upadku kilku zakochanych w niej mężczyzn. Trwały one dwa lata. Przesłuchano dwa tysiące kandydatek, kilkaset poddano próbom przed kamerą. Wszystkie zostały jednak odrzucone – jedne nie miały odpowiednich warunków fizycznych, inne – talentu. Historię śledziły gazety i czasopisma. Wybór aktorki stał się wkrótce sprawą narodową.
We wrześniu 1928 roku 21-letnia Louise Brooks, niezwykle piękna i wyzywająco seksualna, opuściła Hollywood, by stać się nieśmiertelną. Pierwszy raz zwróciła na siebie uwagę Pabsta występem w „A kochanek miał sto” („A Girl in Every Port”) Howarda Hawksa, gdzie grała wyrachowanego drapieżnika. Reżyser poprosił o możliwość współpracy z aktorką, ale studio Paramount, z którym była związana kontraktem odmówiło. Legenda głosi, że w momencie, gdy Brooks odmawiała podpisania nowego kontraktu z Paramountem, młoda Marlena Dietrich stała właśnie pod drzwiami Pabsta w Berlinie, umówiona na spotkanie w sprawie głównej roli w „Puszce Pandory”. Reżyser dowiedział jednak się, że Brooks jest wolna i z miejsca ofiarował jej rolę w swoim nowym filmie. W czasach, gdy Ameryka kusiła wiele talentów z Niemiec, Brooks postanowiła wyjechać w przeciwnym kierunku i w ciągu zaledwie dziesięciu miesięcy, pod kierunkiem Pabsta na nowo zdefiniowała sztukę gry aktorskiej i zajęła ważne miejsce w historii kina.
Więcej o filmie: bit.ly/2q4gqKX

MUZYKA:
Wyjątkowe spotkanie muzyczne, którego rezultatów nie sposób przewidzieć. W duecie wystąpią wiolonczelistka i kompozytorka Karolina Rec oraz gitarzysta, twórca muzyki elektronicznej Miron Grzegorkiewicz. Artystka znana szerzej pod pseudonimem Resina ma duże doświadczenie w graniu do filmu, które zdobywała między innymi na kilku poprzednich edycjach Święta Niemego Kina. Przeważnie wykonuje jednak materiał autorski łączący brzmienie wiolonczeli z prostymi narzędziami elektronicznymi. Wśród nich centralną rolę odgrywa looper, który sprawia, że budowane z kolejnych pętli utwory Resiny gęstnieją i rozbudowują się w czasie. Poszukiwania artystki czasem prowadzą w stronę zaskakująco piosenkowych kompozycji, innym razem przybierają formę bardziej abstrakcyjnych impresji. Można je usłyszeć na albumie „Resina”, który ukazał się w 2016 roku nakładem 130701 – neoklasycznego oddziału popularnej brytyjskiej wytwórni FatCat.
Więcej o muzykach: bit.ly/2GBpnXa

Bilety do nabycia on-line i w kasie kina Iluzjon.
Kasa kina: (22) 848 33 33; iluzjon.rezerwacje@fn.org.pl.
http://www.iluzjon.fn.org.pl/cykle/info/852/15-swieto-niemego-kina.html

Pełen program wydarzenia: www.swietoniemegokina.pl

Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks shows in Greece on May 3

Pandora's Box, the 1929 German film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown in Greece on May 3. This screening is part of a series of films to be shown in late April and early May under the sponsorship of the local Goethe Institute. The film was based on a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind; the title of Wedekind's work was in turn suggested by a Greek myth. More information on the event can be found HERE (near the bottom of the page).

Πέμπτη 3/5
11:00 – 20:00  Σε λούπα στο κάτω φουαγιέ
Ο Κάφκα πάει σινεμά/Kafka goes to the Movies (2002, 55´)
Ντοκιμαντέρ του Hanns Zischler

20:30 Αίθουσα Εκδηλώσεων
Το κουτί της Πανδώρας (Die Büchse der Pandora) (1929, 131´)
του Georg Wilhelm Pabst με μεγάλα ονόματα της εποχής Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer κ.ά.

Βασισμένη στα έργα «Το πνεύμα της γης» και «Το κουτί της Πανδώρας» του Φρανκ Βέντεκιντ
Ζωντανή μουσική: Someone Who Isn’t Me (S.W.I.M.)

Follow this unrelated page for MORE information on Brooks and Pabst. A Google search using the Greek title for Pandora's Box ( Το κουτί της Πανδώρας  1929) along with the date of it's release will turn up a number of Greek-language pages about the film.

«Ένα tour de force κινηματογραφικού ερωτισμού», New York Times.

---

«Δεν υπήρξε, ούτε θα υπάρξει ξανά άλλη Λούλου», Village Voice.

---

«H Μπρουκς ως Λούλου είναι κάποια που μόλις τη δει κανείς, δε μπορεί να την ξεχάσει»,
Henri Langlois

Pandora's Box screens in Chicago on April 17

Chicago's Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St. in St. Charles, is continuing its "Silent Film Night" series with the silent film classic Pandora's Box (1929), featuring Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner and Francis Lederer. This German film was directed by G.W. Pabst. More information may be found HERE.

Chicago was a one-time home to Louise Brooks (in the early 1930s.) The Arcada Theatre opened in 1926 as a silent film and vaudeville theater. Tickets are $10 or $8 for members of the Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts or the Silent Film Society of Chicago. Visit www.arcadalive.com 

 

The movie will be accompanied live by Jay Warren, Chicago's foremost pipe organ expert, on the classically restored 3/16 Marr Colton/Geneva Arcada organ. As a regular photoplay organist for the Silent Film Society of Chicago, Warren has accompanied most of the great silent films throughout his 40-year career. He has been featured annually for the society's highly regarded Silent Summer Film Festival since its beginning in 2000.

Louise Brooks: Day by Day 1906-1985 - additional dates from the 1930s

A follow-up of sorts to my last post.... recently, I have been researching Brooks' life for material to ad to the "Louise Brooks: Day by Day 1906-1985" page on the Louise Brooks Society website when I came across these additional dates from the 1930s.

Jan. 14, 1931
Attends performance of Porgy stage play at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles. Also in attendance were other cast members of God’s Gift to Women, as well as Barbara Stanwyck, Frank Capra, Jack Holt, Hobart Bosworth, and Ralph Graves.

January 10, 1932
Florenz Ziegfeld's article, "I Knew 'Em When," notes, "Another name well known to the movies not so long ago was Louise Brooks. She joined my companies as a chorus girl in Louie the 14th. Her beautiful and colorful personality won my immediate attention, however, and I soon decided I must give her some prominence. I placed her in the madcap dance number there fore, a kind of fight number which opened the first act. Her flaming intensity in this flight, her beauty and the cracking of the lash seemed to set off the whole show at a high tempo."

Feb. 10, 1932
United Press reports Brooks files for bankruptcy in Federal Court, listing liabilities as $11,969, and assets only of personal wearing apparel, most of which, according to Associated Press, were "purchased in exclusive Fifth avenue shops." Brooks gave her occupation as "motion picture actress, unemployed."

Oct. 10, 1933
Brooks (26) marries wealthy Chicago playboy Deering Davis (36) at City Hall in Chicago, Illinois. The ceremony was read by Judge Francis J. Wilson, and witnessed by Davis' brother and sister-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Nathan S. Davis III. After a few days, the couple leave for a three month honeymoon in Tucson, Arizona, where they were expected to "live on a ranch." The marriage makes news in papers across the country.

Feb. 20, 1935
Syndicated columnist Ed Sullivan writes: "Dario and Louise Brooks, the former cinema queen, one of the more exciting dance teams in Florida."

October 25, 1936
Los Angeles Times columnist Gabrielle Landon reports Brooks was seen at the Brown Derby with Addison Randall, as were Margo and Francis Lederer, and Clark Gable and the Mervyn Leroys.

 Dec. 11, 1936
Associated Press reports Brooks is "starting her movie comeback," as a chorus girl in the new Grace Moore musical. The AP piece notes that she was a chorus girl in The Canary Murder Case, "her last Hollywood picture." Many subsequent mentions of Brooks regarding her comeback reference her role as the Canary.

May 23, 1938
Los Angeles Times columnist Read Kendall reports "Just few minutes after Addison Randall walked into Bruz Fletcher's Club Bali with Louise Stanley, his former girlfriend, Louise Brooks put in an appearance with Howard Shoup but none appeared embarrassed."

May 31, 1938
Syndicated columnist Ed Sullivan writes that Brooks and Howard Shoup are "going places."

May 3, 1939
Los Angeles Times columnist Read Kendall reports "Louise Brooks looked comfortable in blue slacks" while attending the opening of Gilmore Field, a new baseball ballpark in the Pacific Coast League. Actress and team sponsor Gail Patrick threw out the first pitch. Also in the stands were Joe E. Brown, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Jack Benny, Roscoe Karns, Rudy Vallee, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom and others.

 

Louise Brooks on stage in the 1930s

In the 1930s, Louise Brooks attempted -- or was seen to attempt -- a series of comebacks. Hoping to relaunch her sputtering film career, the actress kept her name in gossip columns and made it known she was interested in working; she tested with a few studios, took the occasional role in films for which she was poorly suited (namely Westerns), and even worked on the stage.

Recently, I have been researching Brooks' life for material to ad to the "Louise Brooks: Day by Day 1906-1985 " page on the Louise Brooks Society website when I came across a couple of little known occurrences regarding Brooks' work on the stage.

It is known, for example, is that in the Fall of 1931, while living in New York City, Brooks was under consideration for the ingenue role in Norma Krasna’s Louder Please, a comedy about Hollywood press agentry. Replacing Olive Borden at the end of October, Brooks appeared in a pre-Broadway staging of Krasna’s play at Brandt’s Boulevard Theater in the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn. Within a few weeks, however, the actress left the cast and was replaced by Jane Buchanan. Here is a rare newspaper advertisement of that production which mentions Brooks. Tickets were only 50 cents. Don't you wish you could have been there?

What is not known is that earlier in the year, while living in Los Angeles, Brooks was under consideration for the role of Poppy in an upcoming stage production of The Shanghai Gesture at the Music Box theater in Hollywood. The production was being staged by no less a person than Mrs. Leslie Carter, the red-haired American silent film and stage actress known as "The American Sarah Bernhardt." Brooks did not get the role, despite being under serious consideration for three weeks. Because of a disagreement over billing, Brooks and Mary Duncan were passed over for a young actress named Isabel Dawn, a former Indiana newspaper reporter.

Over the next few years, mentions would appear in various newspapers noting Brooks come back. On New Year's Eve in 1936, the New York Times wrote ”Louise Brooks, star of the silent screen, is making her screen comeback as a member of the ballet in Grace Moore’s forthcoming Columbia production, When You’re in Love.” Nothing came of it.

In June of 1938, the Los Angeles Times columnist Read Kendall reported “Louise Brooks, under the name Linda Carter, is essaying a comeback through the Bliss-Hayden Miniature Theater. Her first appearance is in the play Miracle for Two by Stanley Kaufman and Effie J. Young. Others in the cast include Beverly Holden, William Stelling, Margaret Meri, Harry Hayden, Howard Johnson, Walter Murray, Nell Keller, Michael Stuart, Mary Rains, Geraldine Gorey and Franco Corsaro.” A couple of days later, Louella Parsons reported in her syndicated column that “Louise Brooks has changed her name to Carrington [Carter], dyed her hair black and opened in a play at the Bliss-Hayden Theater. It is the first step in her new career.” The following day, in its review of Miracle for Two, which the Los Angeles Times thought "zestful," the newspaper coyly remarked “Linda Carter used her every artifice to give an interesting portrayal.”

Brooks seemed to have stuck with it, despite the fact that her part was only a supporting role. In early July, syndicated columnist Paul Harrison reported that Brooks, under the stage name Linda Carter, has been appearing in a play in Los Angeles. “A 20th-Fox talent scout spotted a girl called Linda Carter in a little-theatre play and offered her a screen test. It turned out that ‘Linda Carter’ really is Louise Brooks, who’s aiming at a screen comeback under a different name.” I don't think the production ran much more than a month, or five weeks, as other productions were announced in mid-July.

The Miracle for Two actress who did get some attention was the star of the production, Beverly Holden (who seemingly replaced Margo Bennett just before opening?). Despite a bit of press, I wasn't able to find any other screen credits for Holden. Nor could I find any other stage credits for Linda Carter. In early August, production work began on Overland Stage Raiders, a film which would turn out to be Brooks' last.

I was able to learn a little more about the Bliss-Hayden Miniature Theater. The building still stands, and is now known as the Beverly Hills Playhouse, an acting school with theaters and training facilities in Beverly Hills. From the pictures I found online, it's stage is indeed a small one. The Bliss-Hayden School of Acting was founded and run by a husband and wife team of motion picture actors—actress Lela Bliss with over 45 credits stretching from 1915 to 1965, and her husband actor Harry Hayden with over 260 credits from 1936 to 1955. Veronica Lake, Mamie Van Doren and many other professional actors later studied there. I contacted the Beverly Hills Playhouse asking if they had any  archives or records from 1938, and they responded that they did not. Might any reader of this blog know if any sort of regional theater archives cover this historic little theater exists?

[In 1954, the Bliss-Hayden Theatre was acquired by Douglas Frank Bank and Jay Manford, and renamed The Beverly Hills Playhouse. Many actors had performed there including Anne Baxter and Louella Parsons. Bank and Manford owned the theatre until 1959. Later stars who studied and performed under later owners include George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Tom Selleck, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ted Danson, Tony Danza, Jeffrey Tambor, Tyne Daly, Patrick Swayze, Miguel Ferrer, James Cromwell, and others.]

A footnote to Brooks' 1930s stage work was her work as a ballroom dancer and her curious appearance at the Racquet Club of Palm Springs. On November 4, 1939, Brooks and dance partner Barrett O’Shea performed at a Saturday night party at the Racquet Club in support of headliner Rudy Vallee. (Actor Ralph Bellamy (one of the founders of the Racquet Club), actor Charles Butterworth, director Edmund Goulding, and singer Judy Starr were also present, and took their turn on the Racquet Club’s "stage.") According to a report in the Palm Springs Desert Sun,  O’Shea, and “his charming partner Louise Brooks, did a very clever mask dance, imitating Mrs. Roosevelt and [English Prime Minister] Chamberlain, doing an old time square dance.”

Louise Brooks and Barrett O'Shea

The Racquet Club in Palm Springs was a Hollywood hot spot. Reportedly, Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey Bogart had their own table near the dance floor, and Harry Cohn, Howard Hawks, Franchot Tone, Peter Lorre, and others were occasional visitors.

A week after Brooks did her mask dance, The Desert Sun reported that O’Shea and Brooks had been hired as staff dance instructors at the Racquet Club. “They will teach Saturday and Sunday afternoons until the middle of the season and then every afternoon for the rest of the season. Rhumba and La Conga classes, as well as ordinary ballroom dances and private lessons, will be their feature.”

Annual Toronto Silent Film Festival is set to take place April 6 - 9

This year's annual Toronto Silent Film Festival is set to take place April 6 - 9. Further information, including the line-up of films and ticket availability, can be found HERE.

"Passes and individual tickets" now on sale!

  Saturday and Sunday Passes available this year.

These passes get you into all films screening that day, and saves $3 off regularly priced tickets.

Their spotlight on Women in Film this year focuses on Producer (Asta Nielsen for Hamlet); Director (Lois Weber for Sensation Seekers); and Comedians (the criminally under seen Louise Fazenda, Alice Howell, Mabel Normand, Anita Garvin & Marion Byron). Various short films will be added to most programs

FRIDAY Hamlet (1921) Germany

SATURDAY 1000 Laffs & The Sensation Seekers (1927) USA

SUNDAY Battle of the Somme (1916) Great Britain & Page of Madness (1926) Japan 

MONDAY The Strong Man (1926) USA

And this just announced!

WINGS (starring Richard Arlen, Buddy Rogers, Clara Bow, and with Gary Cooper)

Saturday April 28 @4pm

Fox Theatre 2238 Queen St. East Toronto

 

 

Tickets $15/$13 for Fox members from foxtheatre.ca

DVD Review: The Beginnings of Fritz Lang from Kino Lorber

Dubbed the "Master of Darkness," Fritz Lang is counted among the most influential directors of all time, alongside the likes of Hitchcock, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Truffaut, and Orson Welles. His best known films include the futuristic Metropolis (1927), and the chilling M (1931), a film noir precursor made before he moved to the United States.

Lang is considered one of the great German directors – he is certainly the single greatest German director between the two World Wars, a period straddling the silent and sound eras. (His only rivals are, arguably, G.W. Pabst and F.W. Murnau.) Lang was also an accomplished Hollywood director – his American movies include Fury (1936), a classic, as well as a handful of notable dramas, Westerns, and thrillers including Ministry of Fear (1944). Today, Lang’s reputation rests largely on the dozen or so film noirs he made in Hollywood, stylish, brooding, gritty films like Scarlet Street (1945), The Big Heat (1953), and While the City Sleeps (1956).

Kino Lorber, a label best known for their reissues of cinema classic, has just released Fritz Lang: The Silent Films, an impressive twelve-disc, Blu-ray only collection gathering the complete surviving silent films of the cinema's supreme early stylist. Along with a 32-page booklet and a generous helping of special features and bonus material, the boxed set includes The Spiders (1919), Harakiri (1919), The Wandering Shadow (1920), Four Around the Woman (1921), Destiny (1921), Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1927), Spies (1928), Woman in the Moon (1929), and The Plague of Florence (1919). The latter, based on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” was directed by Otto Rippert from a screenplay by Lang. All of the other films were directed by Lang, with a few having also been written or produced by the director.

Lang enthusiasts or silent film buffs who purchased earlier video tapes or DVDs or even boxed sets of the director’s early work will find each of their treasures represented here in best available or restored versions (including original tints). Metropolis, for example, is the newsworthy 2010 restoration which incorporates 25 minutes of missing footage found in Argentina. (That missing footage include the material featuring Diary of a Lost Girl star Fritz Rasp.) There is also a 50 minute documentary on the making and restoration of the dystopian classic about a worker’s revolt.

The pleasure of a collection like Fritz Lang: The Silent Films is the chance to see the director’s lesser known and sometimes hard-to-find work. Two years after revolutionizing the science fiction film with his epic Metropolis, Lang revisited the genre with Woman in the Moon (1929), an ambitious spectacle that dramatizes the first lunar expedition. There’s also the strange and haunting film, Destiny. Inspired by a childhood dream, this is the work that first brought Lang widespread recognition. It is the story of a young man, taken by Death as he about to be married, whose fiancé makes a deal with Death to save him. Director Luis Bunuel wrote that Destiny “opened my eyes to the poetic expressiveness of the cinema … I suddenly knew that I wanted to make movies.”

Lang's monumental Die Nibelungen is well known in film history, but how many have seen it? This beautifully remastered edition of the more than four hour retelling of a Nordic legend boasts a high definition transfer that sweeps you into its mythic past.

The Spiders is an adventure film, and The Wandering Shadow is a thriller. Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (along with the later, sound-era Mabuse films) had an impact on the development of the crime film, as did Spies on the espionage genre. In some way, each anticipates the visual and metaphorical darkness of Lang’s later film noir efforts.

The Austrian-born Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (1890 – 1976) had a five-decade long career as a filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional producer and actor in the two of greatest centers of film making in the 20th century, Weimar Germany and Hollywood. He worked in different genres and styles, successfully transitioning from silent to sound film and producing masterpieces in both forms. As noted film scholar Tom Gunning states in his booklet essay, “No other filmmaker had a career like Fritz Lang…. his silent films forged his unique vision. This box set brings together all of Lang’s existing silent films in restored versions (including original tints), offering a chance to experience the unity of his work as never before possible.”

I agree. Whether of not you own one or two or three of these films already, this affordably-priced box set is one every silent film enthusiast will want to own.

Lang’s films are at the heart of another recent release from Kino Lorber, From Caligari to Hitler,  a 2014 documentary by Rüdiger Suchsland. Anyone interested in exploring the cinema of Weimar Germany should check out this compelling study, which explores the many connections between the expressionist cinema of Germany and the subsequent rise of Nazism. Looking at landmark films like Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, Metropolis, The Golem, and others, Suchsland tracks the timely concept of the charismatic villain who bewitches the people. Sound familiar?

Fake Louise Brooks images, including nudes

Since it is April Fool's Day, there is no better day to look, once again, at some of the images of Louise Brooks recently for sale on eBay and elsewhere which are, for obvious reasons, simply wrong. Some are images of Louise Brooks look a-likes which have been misidentified, purposefully I would guess, in some instances. Others are fakes, poor photoshop efforts that just don't look convincing. Alas, I censored three of the nude images so as to not run afoul of the blogger censor.

ABOVE: Simply put, a BAD photoshop job. Louise Brooks' real head has been placed on another body. And, her head is obviously too big for the body, the proportion is off. Yes, Louise Brooks posed in the nude, but this ain't her.

ABOVE: This item has been identified on eBay as Louise Brooks. Yes, Louise Brooks posed in the nude, but this ain't her. This postcard model is pretty. And she does have the same hair style, but it ain't her.

ABOVE: Again, this item has been identified on eBay as Louise Brooks. Yes, Louise Brooks posed in the nude, but this ain't her.

ABOVE: Again, this item has been identified on eBay as Louise Brooks. Yes, Louise Brooks posed in the nude, but this ain't her.

ABOVE: Another unreal image, another BAD photoshop job. That is Louise Brooks, but she did not pose with a bird/hat on her head. Ridiculous.

It is too bad eBay sellers and Facebook fans continue to promote these images as being authentic. They ain't. And while we're at it, here are a couple of more images which are sometimes said to be Louise Brooks.  They ain't. The first features a model named Mischa Barton, who is sometimes mistaken for the silent film star. Not sure of the name of the contemporary model in the second gothic image.